BumpTop FTL – Poor Customer Support Techniques

I truly don’t remember when I applied to get a Beta Invite for the BumpTop desktop application, but I finally received the accepting email on April 7th.

I was very happy to try out this cool desktop app that claims to change the boring graveyard that is full of lost and forgotten files to something the suits your needs and style. I followed  the link provided to download the software and try it out. The web pages states to copy the beta code which will be asked for when installing the application.

I down load the application and go through the install process.

The application starts up and asks for the BumpTop Pro Key, the one that was listed in the webpage.  

I enter the key and click OK only to get a message that the “Beta  invite codes are no longer supported.”

WHOA! FAIL! WTH??? I try the manual way and it takes me to another webpage that has me cut and paste a code to the entry box but it fails too.

I decided to email the company about this and see what is up. I sent off the email that same night stating the issue I was running into. I received a reply that was a little concerning on my part.

When a canned support ticket reply starts off with “Respect Yo,” you really need to ask “What the hell software did I install on my machine that this company responds this way?”

Two days later I receive a response in email from Mike Jurka of Bump Top. It states:

Hi,

We invited the last of our beta users shortly before launch, but then launched to the public; for users that didn’t open their email in time we could see how it’s confusing. Sorry about that.

The good news is that your beta invite code entitiles you to a discount! Just visit: http://bumptop.com/buy/ExistingUsersDiscount.php

Mike Jurka

WOW… so its not the fault of BumpTop’s that they sent out several Beta invites, but then decided to go launch publicly canceling out those Beta invites they just sent out. Then only to say that its the Beta users fault for not opening up their email in time?

WTF!

Well I guess the time it took from when I received the email for the invite (Tue, April 7th, 2009 at 12:26am) when I downloaded the software and went through the whole thing that I listed above to the time I emailed them at 10:58pm that night is enough time to Launch and invalidate my beta invite.

You can see the emails below with date and time stamps. I’ve even capture the header information for the original email for all you.

As for my thoughts on the actual software, I believe this is a pretty desktop overlay that makes working on the same old desktop more interesting, but until it can replace the Explorer of the Windows system and change how the way the applications look to match the rest of the desktop, its just another application that eats away memory and processor time that could be put towards running the many applications that you would be using. Eye candy, nothing more. I’ve removed it from machine.